Passione Italiana: The Art of Espresso

Passione Italiana chronicled the evolution of the espresso machine and documented technological and industrial design developments.  The exhibit showcased espresso makers used in Italy during the mid-twentieth century — alongside inventive coffee sets and unique crockery — and traversed through the decades.

In 1918, Italian engineer Alfonso Bialetti watched women washing their clothes in a sealed boiler with a small central pipe.  The pipe drew soapy water from the bottom of the boiler and spread it over the wet laundry.  Bialetti decided to try and adapt this idea to make a coffee machine that would allow Italians to have high quality coffee in their homes.  Prior to that, coffee was generally consumed in public coffee houses that were primarily frequented by men.

Bialetti made his coffee maker out of aluminum because he had a great deal of experience with the metal, but his choice of materials was constrained because Mussolini had imposed an embargo on stainless steel.

Bialetti’s efforts produced the Moka: a stove-top machine with three chambers.  One is for water, one is for coffee grounds, and one is for the finished blend.  When the moka pot is placed on the stove, the water heats up and generates steam.  This increases the pressure in the bottom chamber and pushes the water up through the coffee granules and into the top chamber.  (Technically, the resulting drink is not an espresso because it is not brewed under nine bars of pressure.)

Interestingly, the Moka is named after the city of Mocha in Yemen, where one of the best varieties of Arabica coffee grows.  Its clean, classic design with its symmetrical eight-faceted metallic body was based on a silver coffee service popular in wealthy Italian homes in the 1930s.  It has been largely unchanged for over 80 years.

In 1938, Achille Gaggia applied for a patent for the first modern, steamless coffee machine which he designed to use commercially in his coffee bar in Milan.  The machine was revolutionary because it used hot water pressure instead of steam to prepare an espresso.

In 1947, Gaggia applied for his second patent which was for the machine on view here.  It uses a spring loaded lever to force a piston through the coffee grounds and was the first machine that could create 8-10 bars of pressure, allowing a barista to “pull” a flavorful espresso in just 25-30 seconds.  The process also intensified the aroma of the coffee produced and created the crema that is unique to espresso.  Legend says that Gaggia came to this idea after seeing a piston engine in an American Army jeep.

The machine was highly successful and takes its name, Spagna (or Spain), from its popularity on the Iberian peninsula.

The Mignonet, designed for Universal and pictured above, is a piston-operated machine intended for professional use.  Several variations on this machine have been produced, having one to six heads and with gas and electric heating systems.  Its chrome body is especially eye-catching and glamorous.

In 1956, the architecture and design magazines Domus, Casabella, and Stile Industria organized a “concorso” (or competition) to design an espresso machine.  The winning machine was designed by Bruno Munari and Enzo Mari and has multi-colored modular faces that can be combined to create different chromatic and dimensional effects.  Its faceted shape earned this machine the nickname “Diamante” or “The Diamond.”

The espresso machine was sold by La Pavoni under the commercial name of “Modello Concorso” until the early 1960s.  Recently, after a hiatus of almost 50 years, La Pavoni released a contemporary interpretation of the machine, though it did not include the levers that were on the original model.

The Faema E61, shown above, is a legendary — and revolutionary — coffee machine.  It was launched in 1961 and the “E” in its name stands for “eclipse,” in honor of the total solar eclipse that darkened the sky over Italy on February 15th of that year.

Carlo Valente, founder of the company Faema, revolutionized the brewing of espresso with the E61.  While piston-lever machines of the 1940s and 1950s relied on the strength of the barista to force water through the coffee grounds, the E61 used a motorized pump to provide the nine bars of pressure needed for brewing espresso.  The pump draws tap water directly from a plumbing line, sending it through a spiral copper pipe inside a boiler before being shot through the coffee.  A heat exchanger keeps the water to an ideal brewing temperature.

With its technical innovations, smaller size, versatility, and streamlined stainless steel design, the E61 was an immediate success and is rightly included in the pantheon of the most influential coffee machines of history.

Architect and designer Marco Zanuso opened his design office in 1945.

In 1971, he designed the Z8 espresso machine (shown above) for the company Rancilio.  Water is fed into the machine from a main line, then softened by a purifier, pressurized by a volumetric pump, heated by a heat exchanger, and forced through the ground coffee.

The machine’s honeycomb metal body, clean lines, and bright colors made it a pop icon in cafes.

Industrial designer Richard Sapper’s rocket-shaped stove-top coffee maker was Alessi’s first product for the kitchen.

In many ways, the 9090 improves on the traditional Bialetti Moka coffee pot.  The wide base maximizes heat absorption and the spout is anti-drip.  Instead of using a screw mechanism to open the pot to fill it, the machine is opened with a lever which allows the user to make coffee with one hand.

Over two million of Sapper’s coffee makers have been sold to date!

As part of this phenomenon, the coffee company Lavazza commissioned marketer Armando Testa to create cartoons to advertise their product.  “The Paulista Cartoons,” as they are called, starred two characters named Caballero Misterioso and Carmencita who spoke in rhymes and comical Spanish and became household names.  Marco Zanuso’s Carmencita coffee pot for Lavazza takes the shape of one of those characters, Carmencita. 

Zanuso also suggests a new way to hold and pour from a coffee pot by adding a handle that is perpendicular to the body of the vessel.

Architect and engineer Matteo Thun was part of the Memphis Group founded by Ettore Sottsass.  Like many creative movements, Memphis was a reaction against the status quo.  While Mid-Century Modernism in the 1950s and 60s and Minimalism in the 1970s were about structure and straight lines, Sottsass and the Memphis group focused on the “radical, funny, and outrageous,” essentially disregarding what was considered in “good taste” at the time.

The Italian manufacturer Alessi launched the Tea & Coffee Piazza project in 1980 when it asked eleven architects to design tabletop tea and coffee sets.  Each architect designed a tray that serves as a “piazza” (city square) and coffee or tea vessels that stand on the tray like buildings.

Made of stainless steel, La Conica was produced as part of this project and became an icon of 1980s design.  It was architect and designer Aldo Rossi’s first mass-produced product, and it was an immediate success for Alessi.

Marcello Morandini is an artist and designer who assembles repetitive simple forms into complex objects.

Morandini designed the porcelain coffee set shown above for the German firm Rosenthal, a manufacturer of porcelain and other household goods.  In its pattern and form, the Circolo Color set expresses Morandini’s idea that all of his “works of art are born under the sign of architecture; the whole design sector can largely be defined as architecture for everyday use."

Marcello Morandini is an artist and designer who assembles repetitive simple forms into complex objects.

Morandini designed the porcelain coffee set shown above for the German firm Rosenthal, a manufacturer of porcelain and other household goods. In its pattern and form, the Circolo Color set expresses Morandini’s idea that all of his “works of art are born under the sign of architecture; the whole design sector can largely be defined as architecture for everyday use."

While La Conica, Rossi’s other coffee maker for Alessi, was made of stainless steel, La Cupola is made of high quality aluminum.  The change in material makes the coffee pot more affordable.

Like La Conica, La Cupola is one of the most widely known Italian design objects.

In 1997, Sapper went back to work for Alessi and he created the machine shown above, called the Cobán.  It was Alessi’s first electrical kitchen appliance and was manufactured in collaboration with Philips.  The design of the machine lets the user see their espresso being made.  As water is heated and pumped through the Cobán at 116 pounds of pressure, the transparent dome fills with condensation to signal the coffee's progress.

(The name Cobán comes from a small town in Guatemala where Sapper's grandfather had a coffee plantation.)

Given his multitude of interests, it is hardly a surprise that his wide-ranging body of work is highly interdisciplinary.

One idea of interest to La Pietra is the reassessment of everyday objects, as seen in this series of coffee cups, where La Pietra has considered the many ways of drinking coffee and crafted a cup suitable for each, including a double shot, sugared coffee, caffe latte, macchiato, strong black coffee, and Turkish coffee.

London-based Turkish designer Bilge Nur Saltik works at the intersection of culture and technology.  Her Ripple Cups, shown above, are reminiscent of Doric columns on Greco-Roman architecture, but she produces them in a distinctively 21st-century way.

The Ripple cups were designed using a CAD program and then 3D printed in plastic. Then, the printed cups were used to create a traditional plaster mold in which the ceramic cups were cast.

In the early 2000s, Alessi commissioned 22 cutting-edge architects to be part of their second Tea & Coffee Piazza Project, the first of which took place in 1980.  Each architect (or team of architects) was asked to design a tea or coffee set made up of a tray that serves as a “piazza” (city square) on which vessels like pots, bowls, and pitchers stand like buildings.  Limited editions of 99 of each set were produced.  The Washington Post called the project “an exploration of the brave new world of architecture, downsized for optimal viewing.”  The project was presented at the Venice Biennale in 2002.

The following images display some of these sets.

Massimilliano Fuksas and Doriana Mandrelli’s interpretation of the project (pictured above) comes in the form of a sheet of shiny silver that is animated by a simple folding gesture that creates a light and sinuous micro-architecture.  The corrugated tray and saucer, in addition to the asymmetry that defines the edges of the cups, also contribute to the feeling of flow and movement.

Like a mini table architecture, Jean Nouvel’s coffee set, which he describes as a “small utopia,” is defined by four cylinders, which, like towers in the night, seem to reflect their own light thanks to the internal gilding.  Always in a play of reflections, the coffee saucer shows a sentence of a song by the famous French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, "Couleur café.  Que j'aime ta couleur café”.

In taking on Alessi’s Tea & Coffee Piazza Project, French architect Dominique Perrault embraced the everydayness and timelessness of drinking coffee.  Rather than creating a coffee service that is “of the moment,” he opted for an ageless interpretation that is highly geometric and combines porcelain with silver.

Japanese architect Toyo Ito’s contribution to the Tea & Coffee Piazza Project uses cups and stacks of saucers as towers, embellishing them with a small green frog, a symbol of good luck.

In departing from examples of coffee piazzas, we are presented with the Diva.

Designer Andreas Seegatz and Stars Milano — a team of architects, graphic designers and industrial designers — created the Diva for Bugatti.

Meant for home use, the Diva’s racy style comes from its conical form and the prominent gauge that indicates when the machine is ready for use.

Seletti’s Estetico Quotidiano (the name of which translates to “Everyday Aesthetic”) collection distills everyday objects down to their essence.  In this case, the aluminum of a traditional Bialetti Moka coffee maker becomes porcelain, which ennobles the object while also making a little fun of it.

The machine is powered by its user, who fills the portafilter with ground coffee, then pours boiled water into machine’s upper chamber.  Pressure is created by lifting the arms and pushing them back down, which forces water through the coffee. 


Designed by the English designer Patrick Hunt, ROK is made of engine-grade aluminum and is guaranteed for 10 years.

With its highly geometric forms, it is meant to ennoble the daily ritual of drinking coffee.

The different materials are used throughout the set create contrast . . .

. . .  And the spoon is designed to rest perfectly on the edge of the cup.

Created by Mario Trimarchi, an architect from Sicily, the Ossidiana (above) takes its name from obsidian, a rock of volcanic origin.  In designing this piece, Trimarchi was inspired by prehistoric obsidian tools that fit perfectly in the hand.  Just as those tools were faceted so they could be gripped easily, the facets on the Ossidiana are meant to fit comfortably in the hand to allow easy opening and closing of the pot. 

The cups displayed above were created by Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola, are part of a larger line of plates, trays, glasses, bowls, and carafes made from acrylic. 

The organic patterns on the cups were inspired by jelly molds.  The delicate, transparent colors are suitable for any decor.

The Pulcina coffee maker is a moka pot designed by Michele de Lucchi, one of the founders of the Memphis Group, which introduced Postmodernism into design in the 1980s. 

Development of the Pulcina took 15 years.  Its distinctive exterior is created by stacking one spherical form atop another and encasing them in concentric aluminum rings. 

The name of the pot, Pulcina, means “little chick” and comes from the shape of the interior, which De Lucchi described as being “plump and bulbous.”  A red handle and a pouring spout that resembles a beak adds to the playful appearance of this coffee maker.

Lavazza’s compact capsule-based espresso maker has a touchscreen interface that allows the user to select different espresso preparations.

The machine is said to be the quietest on the market, producing only 43 decibels of noise while brewing.

Dutch designer Kees van der Westen is a leader in innovation and craftsmanship.  His high-end, high-precision espresso machines have achieved cult status in the United States and beyond. 

Van der Westen’s machines have a retro-sleek, edgy elegance.  They also have barista-friendly features like a foot pedal to control steam production.

The Mirage Triplette is van der Westen’s updated version of Faema’s revolutionary E61 machine.

To prepare an espresso, fill the filter basket with ground coffee, add hot water, and press the pump repeatedly to produce an espresso in about 30 seconds.  The hand-powered system can produce 18 bars of pressure!

Founded in 1905 by Pier Teresio Arduino, the company Victoria Arduino has been making coffee machines for more than 100 years. 

This iconic Venus Family model was first produced at the end of the 1960s and has now been re-released in this semi-professional version designed for household use.  The copper body is handmade and the water temperature can be regulated as needed for different coffee blends.  The eagle on top the machine is characteristic of the brand and appears on even its earliest machines.